EIGHTH TALK             l47
in view all the time, " I am making an instrument
for the Master's work".  You will be free from
spiritual pride, ,you will avoid many of the pitfalls
into which intellectual development does undoubtedly
lead people.  Why do you want, for example, to
develop a virtue ? Not in order that you may be a
virtuous man.  No, but in order that through that
virtue, through your possession of it, you may be of
greater use to the Master. You must have that idea.
The Master's work must dominate all in your mind.
If you find any other thought than that, any other
reason coming forward for doing anything, then that
, which is putting forward a reason is the mind—not
you, the ego, an important distinction to make.
He says:
This mind, even when you have turned it away from
worldly things, still tries to calculate for self, to make you
think of your own progress, instead of thinking of the
Master's work and of helping others.
Yes, indeed it does; it is proud and separate,
and when it has quite given up all the earthly
kinds of pride, when it no longer takes any delight
in the things in which ordinary men would take
delight, it will then try to make you proud of
your progress—your position in reference to the
great Master, or something of that kind. When
you have trodden that down, and got rid, as you
think, of any pride in these things, then it will try to
make you proud of not being proud. A most subtle